Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Dairy products are stock food and the major source of nutrients for human growth and health. Due to the large consumption, the quality control of dairy products has been a concern for many. There are infamous incidents where the breach of dairy product safety causes death, such as the 2008 Chinese milk scandal that resulted in 13 infant deaths and more than 54,000 hospitalized. These incidents involve watered-down milk and infant formula adulterated with melamine. Melamine contamination has been found in other food materials and components. The World Health Organization referred to the incident as one of the largest food safety events it had had to deal with in recent years, and that the crisis of confidence among Chinese consumers would be hard to overcome. A spokesman said the scale of the problem proved it was “clearly not an isolated accident, but a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits.”
U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,680 is directed to a device and process for measuring and analyzing spectral radiation, in particular for measuring and analyzing color characteristics. In particular, a number of radiation sources are provided in combination with a sensor for detecting radiation within a desired wavelength range. The radiation sources have spectral characteristics that are linearly independent from one another, but overlap so that in combination, the radiation sources generate radiation over the entire desired wavelength range. Alternatively, a single radiation source is provided that generates radiation over the entire desired wavelength range, in combination with a plurality of sensors that have spectral sensing characteristics that are linearly independent from one another, but overlap the entire desired wavelength range. A control unit stores a number of calibration functions with linearly independent spectral characteristics.